Welcome back? Not everyone shares Rory’s opinion
rec·om·pense | ˈrekəmˌpens | verb. make amends to (someone) for loss or harm suffered; compensate. archaic punish or reward (someone) appropriately for an action.
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – The Rules of Golf don’t really have room for concepts like recompense or reconciliation. For the ancient game it’s always a simple question of cause and effect, crime and punishment.
But if there’s no room for nuance in the Rules of Golf, the rule of the day demands a bit of flexibility. That was evidenced by the push back Rory McIlroy caused earlier this week on the Monterey Peninsula when he suggested, however innocently or well-intended, that those who joined LIV Golf should be welcomed back to the PGA Tour without penalty or penance.
“I think life is about choices. Guys made choices to go and play LIV, guys made choices to stay here,” McIlroy said. “If people still have eligibility on this tour and they want to come back and play or you want to try and do something, let them come back. I think it’s hard to punish people.”
Whether McIlroy’s motivations to change his tune were driven by a growing desire to piece a fractured game back together or the pragmatic need to clear away one of the biggest obstacles in the PGA Tour’s ongoing negotiations with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund doesn’t matter. What matters is, the game’s most outspoken opponent to LIV Golf and Saudi investment has pivoted dramatically.
“I’ve changed my tune on that because I see where golf is and I see that having a diminished PGA Tour and having a diminished LIV tour or anything else is bad for both parties,” he admitted Tuesday at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am.
There’s no such thing as a consensus on Tour and that is evidenced in this discussion.
“I’ve asked a lot of players, I’ve done a lot of talking with a lot of players in the last couple months. That’s Rory’s viewpoint. I could name some guys with the same viewpoint, I could name some guys with a totally opposite viewpoint,” said Jordan Spieth, who took McIlroy’s seat on the policy board when he stepped down last year. “It’s certainly mixed on how players feel about that.”
Rickie Fowler was not nearly as tactful when asked his thoughts on what a pathway back to the Tour for those who joined LIV Golf would look like.
“[I’m] probably not in the same spot as Rory. Maybe we started in a similar area, but I think there’s been a little roller-coaster ride on his part,” Fowler said. “As far as decisions to go elsewhere and just welcome back, I don’t think it’s a direct road [back to the Tour]. I mean, they made decisions and there has to be something for it. Whether how small or big, that’s not up to me.”
Fortunately for those who will need to walk that tight rope, it’s not a decision that must be made immediately.
Wednesday’s announcement that the Tour had agreed to a deal with Strategic Sports Group, a private equity group led by Fenway Sports, to create PGA Tour Enterprises will now allow the circuit to focus on its talks with the PIF and, depending on who you ask, it either creates a runaway to reunite the game or a war chest for an escalating arms race.
Without a definitive agreement with the PIF, which owns LIV Golf, there’s no need to get bogged down in what promises to be a polarizing debate. But for many, the day of recompense feels inevitable.
“I think everyone’s divided,” said Patrick Cantlay, a player director on the policy board, which will ultimately decide what a potential pathway back to the Tour looks like. “People are welcome to make the choices that they’d like to make. It’s a personal choice. As far as coming back, we’ll see. It’s up to a group of us. I know players feel all over the board on that issue and so my job as a player director is to represent the entire membership.
“If something like that were to come down the road, I’m sure we would have to have a robust conversation around that topic.”
Although many see it as a sliding scale, those who joined LIV Golf violated the Tour’s policy on media rights and conflicting-event releases and many resigned their memberships. It’s not as straightforward as hitting a ball out of bounds or taking an incorrect drop, but there is a correlation that can’t be ignored – violate a rule, take your penalty, move on.
There are multi-billion-dollar hurdles, not to mention continued scrutiny from federal regulators, facing the Tour as it inches closer to its new, for-profit reality, but the biggest obstacle commissioner Jay Monahan faces will be balancing the basic human desire for a pound of flesh with the need to keep things moving in the right direction.